Balance Force Model

Week of Oct. 1
Double Period:  Have students copy/tape Cheat Sheet into their lab notebooks. Go over Cheat Sheet with introductory information about the vocabulary of forces and types. Use the Matter Model and info from Kelly  (http://kellyoshea.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/common-types-of-forces-bfpm-cheat-sheet/ )Take about 30-40 min for this. Mostly fill in the table for students...don't spend a lot of time getting them to come up with the forces. Just list them for now.

Then pull out the Kick Disk and start discussing schema and FBD (http://kellyoshea.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/building-the-balanced-force-particle-model/#comment-891) Go through the first 2 system diagrams and leave time for them to discuss whether or not the forces should balance.

Double Period:
Continue with Kick Disk finishing discussion of FBD in different scenarios. Then have students work on Free Paricle Model Worksheet 1a (http://www.modelingphysics.org/freeparticle/sframe.htm) to draw FBDs. Or Kelly's Worksheet 2:FBDsAfter they have worked for awhile, assign groups to present as a WB activity.

Remember this unit is BALANCED FORCES....no acceleration, yet.

Single Period:
Experiment with force vs mass using either a spring scale or force probe. Showing balanced forces. Spring scale only measures ONE force on the mass. What does the slope represent? Complete lab write-up in lab notebook. Could do this with both sections together on Friday but must be efficient.
Other possibility...trig review...or Graphical Vector addition...this would flow nicely from the FBDs. Those students who have had trig can use component analysis and others can use graphical. I'd like to try this topic in this way this year.

WEEK 2
Double Period
Opener: Draw a FBD and do a VAD to check understanding.
Work together on Interactions Worksheet...combination of Modelling Worksheet 2 and 3. Can maybe differentiate some of these problems with trig/non-trig students. Need to make up this worksheet. Also look at Kelly's worksheet 4. WB meeting format?

Double Period
Lab...spring scale? Force table? Force plate? Something else? Just seems that they should have a practical activity in here. It would be great to do something with the force sensors and Logger Pro.

Model Deployment idea: http://noninertialteaching.wordpress.com/category/modeling/
scroll down to the two ramp race.